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Post-Human Institutions and Organizations

Author : Ismael Al-Amoudi

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 290 pages

File Size : 14,87 MB

Release : 2019-11-11

Category : Computers

ISBN : 1351233459

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Book Description

When the Matrix trilogy was published in the mid-1980s, it introduced to mass culture a number of post-human tropes about the conscious machines that have haunted our collective imaginaries ever since. This volume explores the social representations and significance of technological developments – especially AI and human enhancement – that have started to transform our human agency. It uses these developments to revisit theories of the human mind and its essential characteristics: a first-person perspective, concerns and reflexivity. It looks at how the smart machines are used as agents of change in the basic institutions and organisations that hold contemporary societies together, for example in the family and the household, in commercial corporations, in health institutions or in the military. Its main purpose is to enrich the ongoing public discussion of the social and political implications of the smart machines by looking at the extent to which they further digitalise and bureaucratise the world, in particular by asking whether they are used to develop techno-totalitarian societies that corrode normativity and solidarity.



What is Essential to Being Human?

Author : Margaret S. Archer

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 311 pages

File Size : 43,13 MB

Release : 2021-07-14

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1000411532

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Book Description

This book asks whether there exists an essence exclusive to human beings despite their continuous enhancement – a nature that can serve to distinguish humans from artificially intelligent robots, now and in the foreseeable future. Considering what might qualify as such an essence, this volume demonstrates that the abstract question of ‘essentialism’ underpins a range of social issues that are too often considered in isolation and usually justify ‘robophobia’, rather than ‘robophilia’, in terms of morality, social relations and legal rights. Any defence of human exceptionalism requires clarity about what property(ies) ground it and an explanation of why these cannot be envisaged as being acquired (eventually) by AI robots. As such, an examination of the conceptual clarity of human essentialism and the role it plays in our thinking about dignity, citizenship, civil rights and moral worth is undertaken in this volume. What is Essential to Being Human? will appeal to scholars of social theory and philosophy with interests in human nature, ethics and artificial intelligence.



Posthuman Management

Author : Matthew E. Gladden

Publisher : Defragmenter Media

Page : 444 pages

File Size : 35,42 MB

Release : 2016-08-07

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 1944373063

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Book Description

What are the best practices for leading a workforce in which human employees have merged cognitively and physically with electronic information systems and work alongside social robots, artificial life-forms, and self-aware networks that are ‘colleagues’ rather than simply ‘tools’? How does one manage organizational structures and activities that span actual and virtual worlds? How are the forces of technological posthumanization transforming the theory and practice of management? This volume explores the reality that an organization’s workers, managers, customers, and other stakeholders increasingly comprise a complex network of human agents, artificial agents, and hybrid human-synthetic entities. The first part of the book develops the theoretical foundations of an emerging ‘organizational posthumanism’ and presents frameworks for understanding and managing the evolving workplace relationship between human and synthetic beings. Other chapters investigate topics such as the likelihood that social robots might utilize charismatic authority to lead human workers; potential roles of AIs as managers of cross-cultural virtual teams; the ethics and legality of entrusting organizational decision-making to spatially diffuse robots that have no discernible physical form; quantitative approaches to comparing managerial capabilities of human and artificial agents; the creation of artificial life-forms that function as autonomous enterprises competing against human businesses; neural implants as gateways that allow human users to participate in new forms of organizational life; and the implications of advanced neuroprosthetics for information security and business model design. As the first comprehensive application of posthumanist methodologies to management, this volume will interest management scholars and management practitioners who must understand and guide the forces of technologization that are rapidly reshaping organizations’ form, dynamics, and societal roles.



Post-Human Futures

Author : Mark Carrigan

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 170 pages

File Size : 33,37 MB

Release : 2021-04-12

Category : Computers

ISBN : 135118993X

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Book Description

This volume engages with post-humanist and transhumanist approaches to present an original exploration of the question of how humankind will fare in the face of artificial intelligence. With emerging technologies now widely assumed to be calling into question assumptions about human beings and their place within the world, and computational innovations of machine learning leading some to claim we are coming ever closer to the long-sought artificial general intelligence, it defends humanity with the argument that technological ‘advances’ introduced artificially into some humans do not annul their fundamental human qualities. Against the challenge presented by the possibility that advanced artificial intelligence will be fully capable of original thinking, creative self-development and moral judgement and therefore have claims to legal rights, the authors advance a form of ‘essentialism’ that justifies providing a ‘decent minimum life’ for all persons. As such, while the future of the human is in question, the authors show how dispensing with either the category itself or the underlying reality is a less plausible solution than is often assumed.



Digital Capitalism and New Institutionalism

Author : Daniil Frolov

Publisher : Taylor & Francis

Page : 245 pages

File Size : 20,26 MB

Release : 2023-12-19

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 100383308X

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Book Description

Modern institutional economics was created to study the institutions of pre-digital economies and is based on reductionist approaches. But digital capitalism is producing institutions of unprecedented complexity. This book argues therefore that not only the economic institutions themselves but also the theoretical foundations for studying those institutions must now be adapted to digital capitalism. The book focuses on the institutional complexity of digital capitalism, developing an interdisciplinary framework which brings together cutting-edge theoretical approaches from philosophy (first of all, object-oriented ontology), sociology (especially actor-network theory), evolutionary biology, and cognitive science. In particular, the book outlines a new approach to the study of institutional evolution, based on extended evolutionary synthesis – a new paradigm in evolutionary biology, which is now replacing neo-Darwinism. The book develops an enactivist notion of extended cognition and cognitive institutions, rejecting the individualistic and mechanistic understanding of economic rationality in digital environments. The author experiments with new philosophical approaches to investigate institutional complexity, for example, the ideas of the flat ontology and the assemblage theory. The flat ontology approach is applied to the study of human-robot institutions, as well as to thinking about post-anthropocentric institutional design. Assemblage thinking allows for a new (much less idealistic) look at blockchain and smart cities. Blockchain as digital institutional technology is considered in the book not from the viewpoint of minimizing transaction costs (as is customary in the modern institutional economics), but by using the theory of transaction value which focuses on improving the quality of digital transactions. The book includes a wide range of examples ranging from metaverses, cryptocurrencies and big data to robot rules, smart contracts and machine learning algorithms. Written for researchers in institutional economics and other social sciences, this interdisciplinary book is essential reading for anyone interested in the interplay of institutional and digital change.



Bureaucracy, Collegiality and Social Change

Author : Emmanuel Lazega

Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing

Page : 339 pages

File Size : 11,41 MB

Release : 2020-04-24

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1839102373

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Book Description

This insightful book theorizes the contrast between two logics of organization: bureaucracy and collegiality. Based on this theory and employing a new methodology to transform our sociological understanding, Emmanuel Lazega sheds light on complex organizational phenomena that impact markets, political economy, and social stratification.



Ways of Being Bound: Perspectives from post-Kantian Philosophy and Relational Sociology

Author : Patricio A. Fernández

Publisher : Springer Nature

Page : 244 pages

File Size : 13,18 MB

Release : 2022-11-01

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 3031114698

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Book Description

This book addresses the topic of 'being bound' from a philosophical and a sociological perspective. It examines several ways in which we are bound. We are bound to acknowledge the truth and to follow laws; we are bound to others and to the world. Who we are is partly defined by those bonds, regardless of whether we live up to them – or even of whether we acknowledge them. Puzzling questions arise from the fact that we are bound, such as: How are those bonds binding? Wherein lies their normative character? A venerable philosophical tradition, particularly since Kant, has provided an account of normativity that crucially appeals to such notions as “self-legislation.” But can our normative bonds be properly understood in these essentially first-personal terms? Many argue that our social condition resists any account of those bonds that fails to acknowledge the perspectives of the second and the third person. The first part of the book explores these themes from a historical perspective in the tradition of transcendental philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger); it examines the phenomenon of “being bound”, i.e., why and how we are bound. The second part of the book offers a sociological analysis of social bonds that is both historical and systematic. Based on sociological approaches to “solidarity” and “reflexivity”, it explores the way in which the phenomenon of “being bound” manifests through the concept of a “social relation”.



Business With a Conscience

Author : Joan Marques

Publisher : Taylor & Francis

Page : 513 pages

File Size : 47,8 MB

Release : 2021-12-07

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 1000481980

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Book Description

Practicing business with a conscience leaves no sector untouched. It trickles into how we treat our employees; approach our work in general; address stakeholders; engage in accounting, financial, and production management practices; implement and manage information technology; communicate on a direct and indirect basis; and market what we stand for. Business has encountered an interesting evolution in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, with social media as a catalyst aiding greater understanding and improvement regarding the critical value of soft skills, workplace diversity, change readiness, moral responsibility, sustainable awareness, and a general socially responsible mindset. This amalgamate spirit of business as we envision it in both the near and far future has found its way in all segments of business education, research, and practice. Adhering to the global trend of increased responsibility and evoking a constructive change in the narrative of business, this Research Companion serves as a critical reference work for business scholars and practitioners in various settings. It brings together contributing scholars from multiple business areas, from a variety of cultures and locations of the world, in order to achieve the compilation of a reference work that will find an expansive appeal. Including insights from the broad business spectrum ranging from internal managerial practices to strategic applications, including international sensitivity, this volume highlights the urgency for increased awareness in business decision-making on all fronts. It will be of great value to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of corporate social responsibility, business ethics, leadership, organizational studies, and entrepreneurship.



Artificial Intelligence and Democracy

Author : Duberry, Jérôme

Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing

Page : 256 pages

File Size : 17,56 MB

Release : 2022-06-21

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1788977319

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Book Description

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This insightful book explores the citizen-government relation, as mediated through artificial intelligence (AI). Through a critical lens, Jérôme Duberry examines the role of AI in the relation and its implications for the quality of liberal democracy and the strength of civic capacity.



The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks

Author : Ryan Light

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Page : 768 pages

File Size : 27,95 MB

Release : 2020-11-20

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 0190251778

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Book Description

While some social scientists may argue that we have always been networked, the increased visibility of networks today across economic, political, and social domains can hardly be disputed. Social networks fundamentally shape our lives and social network analysis has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field of research. In The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks, Ryan Light and James Moody have gathered forty leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science, among others, to provide an overview of the theory, methods, and contributions in the field of social networks. Each of the thirty-three chapters in this Handbook moves through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. They cover both a succinct background to, and future directions for, distinctive approaches to analyzing social networks. The first section of the volume consists of theoretical and methodological approaches to social networks, such as visualization and network analysis, statistical approaches to networks, and network dynamics. Chapters in the second section outline how network perspectives have contributed substantively across numerous fields, including public health, political analysis, and organizational studies. Despite the rapid spread of interest in social network analysis, few volumes capture the state-of-the-art theory, methods, and substantive contributions featured in this volume. This Handbook therefore offers a valuable resource for graduate students and faculty new to networks looking to learn new approaches, scholars interested in an overview of the field, and network analysts looking to expand their skills or substantive areas of research.